Articles Posted inMedical Devices

We had Christine Scott on the air with her lawyer quite some time ago to discuss her trial over vaginal mesh case. Partially as a result, James Ackerman got involved in some vaginal mesh litigation and is actively interested in these issues. There are currently 70,000 vaginal mesh cases pending in federal court in a multi-district litigation. Vaginal mesh is the biggest type of civil lawsuit pending in federal court. All the rest of other cases pending in all the federal courts do not total number of vaginal mesh cases pending.

Christine Scott filed a complaint against Bard entered Dr. concerning the implantation of her vaginal mesh. Her doctor had watched a DVD on this surgical technique. However, he did not bother to read instructions for use. He implanted vaginal mesh. After the surgery Christine could not urinate, and was in pain. She had multiple surgeries to try to fix the problems and a sixth surgery to extrude mesh and to release mesh tension. Following that she was in excruciating pain due to nerve damage, had pain during sex, and lost control of her bowels. The jury awarded Christine 5 million in damages and her husband 500,000 for loss of consortium. The jury found her doctor’s negligence was not a substantial factor in causing the Scotts harm, but assigned 40% fault to her. Accordingly, the court reduced the Scotts noneconomic damages by 40% and entered judgment for 3.3 1 million per Christine and 300 for her husband.

Bard appeal. It claimed that the negligence theories were improperly instructed to the jury. Bard argued that it could not be strictly liable for design defect. The court found that Bard was right about that, but just because it was immune for strict liability does not make it immune for negligence. The court determined that the jury was properly instructed on negligence.

Christine Scott was an avid runner. She ran in marathons and shorter races as a hobby and to keep in shape. She began having problems with incontinence of urine. She went to see her doctor. Her doctor told her to try a surgical implant of transvaginal mesh. The mesh supports the organs, preventing prolapse. The surgery, her doctor told her, was safe and would fix her problems. He put Avalta mesh, in Christine, which is manufactured by Bard.

Unfortunately, her doctor was wrong. After undergoing the surgery, the first problem Christine noticed was that she could not urinate at all. Obviously, fixing her incontinence by making it impossible for her to urinate was not the proper solution. So she underwent surgery to correct the first problem.

But there were more problems. She began experiencing pain. The mesh was moving around in her body. The mesh is course enough to perforate organs. The mesh is porous enough that organs can adhere to it, making it very difficult, if not impossible for doctors to remove it.